STEM NEwS: Game On!1

1/32” clear base layer

1/32” white painted layer

1/16” clear layer

lines and logos are

painted on this layer’s

surface

10 clear sealing layers added together

make the ice 1” thick

A HOCKEY RINK IS BUILT IN LAYERS OF ICE

THE CHEMISTRY OF HOCKEY uring one hockey game, players skate nearly 200miles. As they skate back and forth across the rink, the blades of their skates slice, shred and shave the surface of the ice.

But thanks to ice technicians who use engineering and chemistry skills, the ice at a professional hockey rink stays smooth.

Have you seen ice cubes that look cloudy white? That’s oxygen trapped inside. Too much oxygen softens ice (think of a snowcone), making the blades of skates sink into the ice and go slower.

Water contains tiny traces of dust and minerals. Too much of this can soften ice. Too little can make it too hard. Chemistry studies helped ice rink professionals find just the right amount of minerals for a perfect ice surface.

A typical bathtub holds about 50 gallons of

water.

A professional-sized ice rink requires a lot of water. It takes about

10,600 gallons to cover the surface 1 inch thick.

Do the math and calculate how many

bathtubs that would �ll.

BATH MATH

WHY NOT FREEZE THE ICE IN ONE

BIG FLAT ICE CUBE? BECAUSE BUILDING

IT UP IN THIN LAYERS CREATES

A STRONGER SURFACE THAT WON’T CRACK.

Hockey gear has come a long way through the years. (This player must be wearing his “casual Friday” uniform.)

50 I0,600

Snowcones make

terrible hockey rinks

but pine cones are

even worse.

STEM NEwS: Game On!2

MAKING RINK ICE

The Story of the Hockey Puck

Puri�ed water is sprayed onto a concrete slab that rests on top of pipes �lled with chilled salt water. Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water. This lowers the slab’s temperature to 16° Fahrenheit, cold enough to �ash freeze the thin layer of fresh water.

Fresh water freezes at

_____° F (0° C)

= 0= 1

= 2= 3

= 5= 6

= 8= 9

Salt water freezes at about minus

_____° F

(minus _____ ° C)

Making the ice for an o�cial NHL hockey rink takes science and about four days.

A hockey player’s ice skate blades are made of steel. But the edge is not shaped like a knife blade.

The blade has a little groove down the center of it, giving it two sharp edges.

This double-edge blade gives skaters the ability to dig into the ice, making it possible to stop, start, or change direction more quickly.

blade edges

blade

WHACK! A hockey puck slammed into this article, scattering some of

the words. Can you replace them all?

Hockey pucks weren’t always made of black __________ like they are today.

Early pucks were balls, stones, lumps of coal, or _________ cow or horse poop. Later, wooden pucks were used for many years.

Mothers sometimes put hot baked ___________ into their children’s skates so that the skates would be cozy and

warm when the kids reached the rink or ________. The potatoes were not thrown away. They eventually froze and were used as pucks!

Although rubber was _______________ in 1839, it wasn’t until the late 1880s that someone thought of making rubber pucks.

An NHL hockey rink is _______ feet long and ______ feet wide.

STEM NEwS: Game On!3

A blade shaves a thin layer from the surface of the ice.

After a horizontal screw (called an auger) gathers the shavings, a vertical auger lifts and propels them into the snow tank .

Water is fed from a wash-water tank to the “conditioner” , which rinses the ice. Dirty water collected in front of a squeegee is vacuumed, filtered, and returned to the tank.

Clean water from the ice making tank is delivered to the ice through a pipe and spread evenly by a towel pulled across the ice behind the conditioner .

Shaving

Collecting

Washing

Resurfacing

HOW A ZAMBONI ICE RESURFACING MACHINE WORKS

UNEVEN ICE IS A REAL

PAIN!

The Zamboni ice resurfacing machine was invented by Frank Zamboni in the 1940s.

When indoor ice rinks were �rst built, the ice was smoothed by pulling a scraper behind a tractor, shaving the surface. Three or four workers would scoop away the shavings and spray the surface with water. This would take more than an hour!

Frank Zamboni saw this as an engineering puzzle to be solved: how could he make a good sheet of ice in a short period of time?

By using science experimentation, observation and engineering, Zamboni invented a machine that makes the task of ice resurfacing fast and e�cient.

eeping the ice smooth in a hockey rink is a really big job. And it requires some really big technology.

A scientist uses observation skills. How good are your observation skills? Look carefully to see how many

snow�akes you are able to �nd below. Have a friend try. Did you �nd the same amount?

TECHNOLOGY ON THE ICE

STEM NEwS: Game On!4

BiofeedbackExplore your reaction time using the science of biofeedback in the Chevron STEM Zone!

The Reaction Time TestMATERIALS:

• yardstick• friend

HOW FAST CAN YOU REACT?Goalies need to have the ability to react

extraordinarily fast when a hockey puck is whizzing towards them at 90 miles per hour.

SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK

Rest your arm on the edge of a table or

chair, with your hand hanging over the edge.Hold your thumb and

index finger about one inch apart.

Have a friend hold the yardstick so that its

bottom end is between your two fingers.

Without warning, have your friend drop the yardstick. Close your fingers to catch

the yardstick as quickly as you can.

Write down the number of inches the yardstick fell before you caught it. Try it

10 times and calculate your average.

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

10.

inchesinchesinchesinchesinchesinchesinchesinchesinchesinches

MY AVERAGE:

The average person catches the yardstick at around 6 to 8 inches. This is a reaction time of .177 to .204 seconds. That’s pretty fast, right? But to match the reaction time of a

professional hockey goalie, who needs to stop a puck traveling at 90 mph from 20 feet away, you would have to catch the yardstick at 4.5 inches!A hockey puck traveling at 152 feet

per second will travel 20 feet in .152 seconds. That’s about 1/10th of a second. Better keep practicing with that yardstick if you want to be a goalie!

Ready for the science scoop?

Salt water freezes at a higher temperature than fresh water.

Oxygen inside of ice makes it more clear.

In one hockey game, a player can skate nearly 200 miles.

Some early hockey pucks were stones, lumps of goal or frozen cow poop.

A small amount of miner-als in the ice of a hockey rink helps the ice from being too hard.

A typical bathtub holds 100 gallons of water.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

WHAT DO YOU CALL A HOCKEY

PLAYER WITH SLOW REACTION TIME?

TOOTHLESS!